Mossad [Hebrew for “institute”] has responsibility for human intelligence collection, covert action, and counterterrorism. Its focus is on Arab nations and organizations throughout the world. Mossad also is responsible for the clandestine movement of Jewish refugees out of Syria, Iran, and Ethiopia. Mossad agents are active in the former communist countries, in the West, and at the UN.

Mossad is headquartered in Tel Aviv. The staff of Mossad was estimated during the late 1980s to number between 1,500 to 2,000 personnel, with more recent estimates placing the staff at an estimated 1,200 personnel. Currently , there are over 35,000 agents worldwide , 20,000 are active agents and 15,000 are called sleepers.

The identity of the director of Mossad was traditionally a state secret, or at least not widely publicized, but in March 1996 the Government announced the appointment of Major General Danny Yatom as the replacement for Shabtai Shavit, who resigned in early 1996.

Formerly known as the Central Institute for Coordination and the Central Institute for Intelligence and Security, Mossad was formed on 01 April 1951. Mossad was established by then Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, who gave as Mossad's primary directive: "For our state which since its creation has been under siege by its enemies. Intelligence constitutes the first line of defence...we must learn well how to recognise what is going on around us."

Mossad has a total of eight departments, though some details of the internal organization of the agency remain obscure.

• Collections Department is the largest, with responsibility for espionage operations, with offices abroad under both diplomatic and unofficial cover. The department consists of a number of desks which are responsible for specific geographical regions, directing case officers based at "stations" around the world, and the agents they control. Beginning in 2000, the Mossad undertook an advertising campaign to promote recruitment of collection officers. See a June 2001 recruiting poster here.
• Political Action and Liaison Department conducts political activities and liaison with friendly foreign intelligence services and with nations with which Israel does not have normal diplomatic relations. In larger stations, such as Paris, Mossad customarily had under embassy cover two regional controllers: one to serve the Collections Department and the other the Political Action and Liaison Department.
• Special Operations Division, also known as Metsada, conducts highly sensitive assassination, sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare projects.
• LAP (Lohamah Psichlogit) Department is responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations.
• Research Department is responsible for intelligence production, including daily situation reports, weekly summaries and detailed monthly reports. The Department is organized into 15 geographically specialized sections or "desks", including the USA, Canada and Western Europe, Latin America, Former Soviet Union, China, Africa, the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. A "nuclear" desk is focused on special weapons related issues.
• Technology Department is responsible for development of advanced technologies for support of Mossad operations. In April 2001, the Mossad published a "help wanted" ad in the Israeli press seeking electronics engineers and computer scientists for the Mossad technology unit.

Israel's most celebrated spy, Eli Cohen, was recruited by Mossad during the 1960s to infiltrate the top echelons of the Syrian government. Cohen radioed information to Israel for two years before he was discovered and publicly hanged in Damascus Square. Another Mossad agent, Wolfgang Lotz, established himself in Cairo, became acquainted with high-ranking Egyptian military and police officers, and obtained information on missile sites and on German scientists working on the Egyptian rocket program. In 1962 and 1963, in a successful effort to intimidate the Germans, several key scientists in that program were targets of assassination attempts. Mossad also succeeded in seizing eight missile boats under construction for Israel in France, but which had been embargoed by French president Charles de Gaulle in December 1968.

In 1960, Mossad carried out one of its most celebrated operations, the kidnapping of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann from Argentina. Another kidnapping, in 1986, brought to Israel for prosecution the nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, who had revealed details of the Israeli nuclear weapons program to a London newspaper. During the 1970s, Mossad assassinated several Arabs connected with the Black September terrorist group. Mossad inflicted a severe blow on the PLO in April 1988, when an assassination team invaded a well-guarded residence in Tunis to murder Arafat's deputy, Abu Jihad, considered to be the principal PLO planner of military and terrorist operations against Israel. Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist who developed the famed "Super Gun" for Iraq was killed by the Mossad at his Brussels apartment in March 1990, effectively halting the development of the Supergun project.

Egyptian security services reported the discovery of a total of seven Israeli espionage networks during 1996, which is a significant increase compared to the 20 similar networks discovered in the previous 15 years.

And Mossad's record has also been blemished by a few embarrassing failures. In Lillehammer Norway on 07 January 1974 Mossad agents mistakenly killed Ahmad Boushiki, an Algerian waiter carrying a Moroccan passport, whom they mistook for PLO security head Ali Ahmad Salameh, believed to have masterminded the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics [Salameh was killed in a 1979 car-bomb explosion in Lebanon]. Following the attack, the Mossad agents were arrested and tried before a Norwegian court. Five Israeli agents were convicted and served short jail sentences, though Israel denied responsibility for the murder. In February 1996 the Israeli government agreed to compensate the family of Ahmad Boushiki.

On 15 November 1995, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Israeli citizen. Following the controversy over the failure of intelligence to protect Rabin, and the embarrassment over the mistaken assassination of a Swedish national, the Director Geneneral of Mossad, then known only as 'S', was forced into retirement. On 24 March 1996 Prime Minister Shimon Peres appointed Major General Danny Yatom as the new Director General of Mossad, the first Director of Mossad to ever be publically identified.

On 24 September 1997 Mossad operatives attempted to assassinate Khalid Meshaal, a top political leader of the Palestinian group Hamas. The assassins entered Jordan on fake Canadian passports, and injected Meshaal with a poison. Jordan was able to wring a numbar of concessions out of Israel in the aftermath of the fiasco, including the release of the founder of Hamas, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, from an Israeli jail.

Report of the Commission Concerning the Events in Jordan September 1997

Summary for Publication
Jerusalem Government Press Office
17 February 1998

members of the commission:
Dr. Yosef Ciechanover,
Lt. Gen. (Res.) Rafi Peled,
Maj. Gen. (Res.) Dan Tolkowsky

Introduction

In light of Government policy, a decision was taken to act against terrorist targets.

On September 25, 1997, an attempt to assassinate Khalid Mish'al took place in Jordan. The attempt failed and the agents were caught and arrested.

On October 6, 1997, the Government decided to appoint a Commission of Inquiry, to investigate the Mosad operation against Khalid Mish'al in Jordan.

The Commission held 47 meetings, heard 35 witnesses (some appeared before it several times) and reviewed hundreds of exhibits and documents. The commission held all its meetings behind closed doors, within a closed facility in the central region of the country.

The Commission wished to focus on the major issues relating to the failure of the operation in Jordan. Although the Government had not imposed any constraints in the terms of reference, the Commission decided to study the matter from the day upon which Khalid Mish'al was confirmed as a target for attack until the day two Mosad agents were apprehended by the Jordanian authorities.

Description of the Operation

Who is Khalid Mish'al?

The Operation in Jordan

In this the current Israeli Government follows the policy of previous Governments. The Commission does not question this policy, but nevertheless proposes that the Government discuss it, define its scope and establish ground rules for its implementation.

The operation in Jordan was planned on the following assumptions: The operational plan must ensure that its successful execution does not leave any tracks that would incriminate Israel directly. In terms of the intelligence community, it must be a "silent" operation. The possibility of failure of the operation, and its implications, were hardly addressed by the Mosad planners and their superiors.

The various heads of the intelligence community, as well as the majority of witnesses who appeared before us, shared these basic assumptions, although they did not necessarily all agree with the timing of the operation.

Overall Conclusions

In the course of its work, the Commission identified several structural and system defects in the Mosad, which, in its view, contributed to the creation of these erroneous conceptions, with resulting faulty methods and procedures. The Commission dealt with these issues at considerable length in its Report, following up with many recommendations, most of which are highly classified for obvious reasons, and which cannot therefore be made public.

The Commission also addressed the matter of coordination between the services within the intelligence community, with particular reference to the modus operandi of the Heads of Services Committee, and has made certain recommendations.

The Commission addressed the issue of the establishment of a National Security Council, concluding that it was very doubtful whether, in the present circumstances, it would be appropriate and practical to create such a body, and therefore does not recommend that such a Council be established at this point.

The Commission examined and made certain recommendations related to the intelligence advisory functions in the Prime Minister's Office. The Commission recommends that an Assistant for Intelligence and Security, with a rank equivalent or close to that of a Major General in the Israel Defense Forces [IDF], be appointed to serve the Prime Minister. This person should be an intelligence expert, and should be responsible for dealing with the extensive flow of intelligence information to the Prime Minister's Office. The Assistant would serve as a direct link between the Prime Minister and the heads of the intelligence services, and would be a regular member of the Heads of Services Committee. He would be in a position to present to the Prime Minister the essence of the available intelligence information and to draw his attention to any issues as required, bearing in mind that the Prime Minister cannot be reasonably expected to handle the large flow of intelligence information effectively, without a modicum of expert assistance.

Conclusions Relating to Individuals

General

The Prime Minister

To assist us in our analysis, we compared the Prime Minister's handling of the case with the manner in which similar cases had been handled in the past. In doing so we reached the conclusion that the Prime Minister had dealt with the case in a responsible manner, having considered and examined the plans presented to him from every possible aspect that might have been expected of him.

From the minutes of discussions held in the Prime Minister's Office, we learned that the Prime Minister had inquired about details of the plans as might have been expected of him. We found that he repeatedly asked that the operation be coordinated with the other heads of the intelligence community, to ensure that they be informed and coordinated as necessary, and we are aware of the fact that a number of discussions were held in the Prime Minister's Office before the plan was approved and executed. We also inquired whether the Prime Minister's conduct in relation to the attack against Mish'al was any different from that of other incumbents in similar circumstances. We therefore studied the relevant minutes regarding similar operations in the past, and heard the testimonies of former Prime Ministers. We reached the conclusion that the Prime Minister's conduct in no way deviated from the norms and procedures customary in similar cases in the past.

The Commission also examined the question of whether the Prime Minister had exerted any unreasonable pressure to carry out the operation "quickly and at any cost," so that it might serve as an immediate response to the terrorist attacks at the Mahane Yehuda market and the pedestrian mall in Jerusalem. We reached the conclusion that no unreasonable pressure had been exerted by the Prime Minister in this matter.

We do not therefore find any flaw in the conduct of the Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the Mosad.

The Commission did not deem it appropriate to delve into the question of the Prime Minister's ministerial responsibility for the failure of the operation. This matter had already been examined in the past by various investigating commissions, which determined that the issue of political responsibility is not a matter for investigation by commissions or other courts of inquiry, but rather within the purview of relations between elected representatives and the electorate. In stating the above, we do not imply that we have found any flaw, from the political aspect, in the Prime Minister's conduct.

The Head of the Mosad

Giving evidence, Dan Yatom addressed the question of the extent to which the Head of the Mosad must delve into details of the plans of Mosad units before giving his approval. We did not wish to answer this question in a general manner, but we are certain that before approving a plan of the type in question, the head of the Mosad must indeed study it in detail. We found that the senior ranks involved in approval of the plans within the Mosad and their presentation to the Prime Minister were among the main factors leading to failure of the operation. The Commission noted a series of shortcomings and errors in the Mosad's basic approach, leading to what was planned as a "silent operation." These were evident in the planning process, in the structure and composition of the plans, and in the manner in which the particular weapon was treated in the plans. We believe that the head of the Mosad erred in his handling of the operation and in approval of the plan. This should not have been structured as a "silent operation," without providing for contingency measures should it become a "noisy" one.

The Commission believes that the Head of the Mosad had enough time at his disposal to convene an additional orderly discussion with the heads of the intelligence services, prior to the operation, and that this should have been done. Nevertheless, the Commission is of the opinion that the heads of the intelligence community were indeed informed by the Head of the Mosad of a possible operation directed against Mish'al.

The Head of the Mosad has extensive experience and knowledge in the field of military operations and it might well have been expected from him that before approving the plan he would identify and address its numerous shortcomings, which were revealed to us in the course of our examination, and would act to rectify them, rather than approve them in what was their final form. It would also have been appropriate that the Head of the Mosad inform the Prime Minister in greater detail of the operational and political implications of carrying out the plan.

We should add that a significant part of the military doctrine underlying the plan is the product of concepts and practices developed and shaped in the Mosad over many years. The Head of the Mosad essentially continued to apply the existing planning, handling and execution procedures and processes previously formed and used in the Mosad.

Summary of the Majority Opinion of the Commission

Summary of the Minority Opinion -- Rafi Peled

The Division Head in Charge of the Combat Unit

He was in charge of the unit which carried out the field operation against Khalid Mish'al, and was therefore directly responsible for planning and approving the plans, and ordering their execution, without adequate study and without making the most of all possible sources of information to help ensure success.

This officer's main error was that he did not identify the shortcomings in the plans and approved a plan which might have perhaps been adequate for a "silent operation," not taking into account the possibility that it might rapidly turn "noisy," for various reasons. A "noisy" operation requires a totally different approach, and therefore at least part of the components of such an approach should have been included as contingencies in the plan for the operation in question. H. should not have approved this flawed and inadequate plan, and should have warned his superior more emphatically and indicated to him the plan's shortcomings. In the course of the Commission's work, the Division Head announced that he had completed his intended term of service in his current position, and that he was in the process of retiring from the Mosad.

The Commission deems it appropriate to mention H.'s particularly impressive conduct before it and his complete cooperation when giving evidence.

The Division Head -- Minority Opinion -- Rafi Peled

The Commander and Members of the Combat Unit -- Majority Opinion

___________, Commander of this Unit, has had many years of operational activities, with extensive experience and with some very impressive achievements to his credit.

We note that this Unit functions as a single entity, with some of its members and its Commander preparing the initial layout of each mission, each participant drawing upon his experience and insight. The Unit Commander works very closely with his men, and regards them as equals. The Unit's main function is to carry out combat missions. Its proposed plans are vetted, complemented and authorized by a higher echelon, namely the Division Head and his assistants. The Division Head carries most of the responsibility for the plans. With his extensive knowledge and experience, he is expected to provide an overview of each plan as well as study all its components, making necessary modifications and correcting omissions as required, after which he may authorize it.

As previously stated, we believe that the principle reason for the failure of the operation lies in the plan and the manner in which it was devised and we have concluded that it is the Division Head, rather than the Combat Unit, who bears most of the responsibility for the failure. We perceive the members of the Combat Unit mainly as fighters in the field, with their Commander an integral part of the Unit. In this context, any attempt to dissociate T.'s duties as combatant from those as a planner would be inappropriate and artificial, and would unjustly cast upon his additional heavy responsibility in the failed mission which he does not deserve.

The Combat Unit's contribution to the planning should be viewed as stemming from their experience as combatants. They should evidently not be responsible for formulating the ultimate plan and authorizing it. The Combat Team are aware that if they are caught in the act they will be held accountable under the laws of the country in which they are operating. They are also aware of the fact that they are not above the law in their own country. Nevertheless, we believe that in assessing their responsibility one should establish whether the failure was caused by human error alone, or stemmed from a blatant violation of instructions, serious negligence, or extreme carelessness. If, on the other hand, they are penalized in every case of failure, this might well lead to a situation in which the commanders of these units, and the combatants too, fail to act, or are constrained in their actions to such an extent that their ability to carry out their missions is gravely impaired.

After studying the material before us, we have concluded that while the combatants and their Commander T. were responsible for a number of human errors in the course of the operation, these errors might have been prevented. The authorizing echelons, whose functions, we think, go well beyond providing a seal of approval, but rather play a significant role in shaping the plans and basic operational procedures, might well have prevented the development and launch of inadequate and defective plans. The Commission was informed that T. had left his position in order to pursue his studies, and we have therefore refrained from making any recommendations in this regard.

Commander and Members of the Combat Unit -- Minority Opinion -- Rafi Peled

The danger and uncertainty which characterize such operations, the high risks involved and the need to carry out complex missions in unfamiliar and changing conditions, lead me to conclude that the appropriate way to examine the quality of performance of those combatants is in the context of an operational debriefing within the Unit, rather than any alternative option of investigation and trial.

X___, Commander of the Unit, began his career as a combatant, working his way up the ladder of operational duties eventually becoming Unit Commander. He has many years of responsible and high- risk operations to his credit, and his contribution to the security of the State of Israel cannot be quantified by any normal standard.

In analyzing the duties of all members of the Mosad who gave evidence before the Commission, we found T.'s position to be the most difficult and complex. He wears two caps: one, as a fighter, leading his soldiers in the field, and the other as a staff officer, a senior commander with a rank corresponding to that of an army Colonel, responsible for planning and formulating his unit's operational plans.

There is a very clear and distinct line separating T.'s position as a fighter and commander in the field, which is beyond the scope of our inquiry, and his other position, as a senior staff officer, with a direct responsibility for planning.

An important question which I had to address was whether the failure was a result of inadequate and flawed planning process and ultimate plan, or rather the result of mishaps in its implementation in the field. A thorough examination of findings presented to us and an analysis of the details of the planning procedure and the ultimate operational plan lead me to believe that the main reasons for the failure of the operation were, first and foremost, inadequate and flawed planning within the Unit under T.'s command. These shortcomings led to an erroneous and inadequate plan, approved by the higher echelons, and the combatants sent on a mission which would almost inevitably fail.

I learned that the operational concept, the method of implementation, the location of the operation, the planning procedure, the formulation of the operational plan and the operation orders were entirely devised by the Unit, under T.'s command, and I find him directly responsible for all of the above.

The chain of operational responsibility in the Mosad is comprised of three links only. Any attempt to extract a single link from the chain, and the basic planning function in particular, breaks the causal connection between the inadequate planning at the Unit level and the commanding echelons that approved the plan in a negligent fashion.

Any attempt to quantify the measure of responsibility and divide it among the three links of the chain, leads me to the conclusion that the role of the planning echelon, headed by T., is no less important than that of the other two authorizing echelons above. Thus, it would be wrong to look upon T. as a minor link, one of a number. Rather, he should be viewed as a major planner, bearing most of the responsibility for the inadequate and flawed plan.

The Commission was informed that T. had completed his term of duty and had left to pursue his studies. I therefore recommend that upon completion of T.'s studies, the Head of the Mosad take into account the findings and conclusions formulated in this report when reassigning him in the Mosad